Sabbath Thoughts

When I was serving as the pastor of a congregation, I worked very hard to take my day off every week.  Over the years, Friday became the day that seemed to work best for this.  To be sure, the occasional wedding rehearsal or funeral would push into that day off, but otherwise I tried to keep that day sacrosanct.

Several years ago, however, someone asked a question that still causes me to pause and consider.  A group of us teaching elders were talking about taking our day off each week, when one of our group looked at us and said, "Well, I take Thursday as my day off, and Friday as my sabbath."  She said that so matter-of-factly that it took me a while to have the implications of her words sink in for me.  I realized then that a "day off" is not necessarily the same as "sabbath."

Theologian and rabbi, Abraham Heschel, in his old (1951) book, The Sabbath, Its Meaning for Modern Man (sic), offered these words about the sabbath:

"The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space.  Six days a week we live under the tyranny of things of space; on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in time.  It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of the world..."

These weeks of Easter in the Church's life remind us that in the Resurrection of Jesus, God broke the normal patterns for time and space.  What better time might we be offered than to use these Easter weeks to reflect on how we spend our time in the midst of our busy lives in an overly-frenetic world?  What does it really mean to observe some time each week (each day?) as Sabbath time?

As I indicated, I still struggle with this.  Perhaps you do, too.  May the Lord of the Sabbath help us find ways to hallow the times in our lives.